Coins of Pain
Violent charcoal clouds crash over the Sacramento Valley, pounding steel rain through the inky night, smothering black foothills, and the damned water of Lake Berryessa — drowning violence. Floyd’s shaking headlight races across the valley floor, a glint of hope, an impossible penny-fountain wish tossed to an abyss of desolation. His Shovel Head Harley chisels into the twisting roads of the Berryessa Highlands, charging past Putah Creek to the weeping Devil’s Gate on to Spanish Flat. Tearing echoes through the hills like a chainsaw of revenge.
Chapter 1
Serial release starts 2/3/25
“Violence is a fire inside us. Grow it, Contain it? Let it go, burn it all.”
-Alfonso Forcade
Night of the Attack
In the late hours, outside of Sacramento’s downtown, closer to the homeless camps than the Capitol, in what looks like the back parking lot of an abandoned industrial building, a door opens under a solitary orange light throwing a long white rectangle across the black parking lot. A stretched shadow fills the shape and lights a cigarette. The figure seems to remember something, then scrawls on the inside of a matchbook cover. “The match head combusts like an inspired thought: furious, sudden, bright.” The petal of flame steadies. He lights his smoke and remembers, “You shouldn’t be using the branded matches.”
Chapter 2
Episode of the serial releases 2/03/25
Night of the Attack (part 2)
Scattered over three green-felted card tables, a couple line cooks hustle money from new staff in a game of Hold ‘em as Mitzi and The Viking reenact the incident from earlier in the shift. “Ok, here. Let’s show ‘em that filthy fuck tangle.” Both are freshly showered with heads wrapped in grey house towels. Mitzi climbs over The Viking’s naked figure. “So, I’m on top like this.”
Episode of the serial releases 2/10/25
castle monticello
The staff is gathered around the long marble rail of Bar Isabell. It’s after hours, it was a slow night and no one wants to spend what little tips they made at another bar, so they stay and drink for free. Isabell’s away and Roland didn’t want to drink alone. He’s talking with his head in his hands and already thinking about his next drink and where to bum a smoke.
Chapter 3
Episode 4 releases 2/17/25